Here’s why I track my reading from the 14th to the 13th of each month, rather than by month: when my last baby was born (two years ago now), I started stacking up the books I read as I read them and taking a quick photo at the end of each month. So I have all these nice photos and can look at the dates and remember, “These are the books I read in the first month after we had the baby” – “These are the books I read when the baby was 9 months old” – etc. It would probably make sense to switch it now, but I’m already in the habit, and also, a little sentimental about it. So … here are the books I read when the baby was 23 months old.
Hell of a Book – Jason Mott – 2021
#20booksofsummer. I’m realizing as I look at this picture what a great reading month this was for me. This amazing novel by a North Carolina author won the National Book Award and is unmissable, at least for Americans. It’s a novel about an author going on a book tour … and about a boy growing up in the south and his parents wanting to protect him from the dangerous world he’ll have to live in … but that’s pretty much like saying 1984 is a book about a man who works in an office. It’s truly indescribable, it made me laugh (a lot), made me cry (a lot), and I’m definitely going to get one or the other of my book groups to read it next year.
East West Street – Philippe Sands – 2017
#20booksofsummer. “Crimes against humanity” – “Genocide.” How did humanity develop legal language to describe what happened in the 20th century and to try to bring the perpetrators of unthinkable crimes to some sort of account? This was one of the best nonfiction books I have ever read. It was hard, hard reading because the history it addresses is so heartbreakingly sad – but it’s better to know about it, isn’t it? And this book tied together the lives of real people who weren’t necessarily famous or powerful (some of them the author’s ancestors), with the lives of other people who came from similar backgrounds but did gain a degree of influence through their work and ideas – and set them all in the context of the catastrophic events of the 1930s and 40s, in a way that was different from anything I’d ever read before. Sands also took up the threads of the lives of some of the people responsible for those events, and a good bit of the book is about the Nuremburg trials. It’s divided into very short chapters, and the writing is clear, incisive and transparent. I couldn’t put it down, and would recommend it to anyone.
The Border: A Journey Around Russia Through North Korea, China, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Ukraine, Belarus, Lithuania, Poland, Latvia, Estonia, Finland, Norway and the Northeast Passage – Erika Fatland – translated by Kari Dickson, 2020
I read this very slowly over the previous four or five months while also reading many other things, and it became more (frighteningly) relevant every week that I was reading it. It was also exceptionally good and will be one of the best books I will have read this year, I think. Norwegian travel writer Erika Fatland, whose book Sovietistan has also been translated into English, traveled all the way around Russia without entering Russia (except I think once), through the 14 countries that border it, and wrote about her experience and the people she met. She especially focused on what it’s like for people in all of these different places to have Russia as a neighbor. I can’t imagine anyone reading it without learning a lot or without really admiring and appreciating the author.
Their Eyes Were Watching God – Zora Neale Hurston – 1937
#20booksofsummer. When I first read this, for school, I liked it but I think I hadn’t read enough books yet to realize just how great it really is. I remembered the plot, which is striking and is good in itself, but this time around I found the language and the ideas in the book just breathtaking. I personally can’t think of a stronger contender for the fabled Great American Novel.
Missee Lee – Arthur Ransome – 1941
The tenth Swallows and Amazons book, the eighth that I’ve read aloud to my kids. We are all devoted fans of these. This one was a really good shipwreck/adventure/escape story with a lot of exciting and fun moments, and was perfect for reading aloud. It’s the second of the books in the series that are different from the others in that they’re not exactly meant to be “real” (the first is Peter Duck). I changed all of Missee Lee’s mispronunciations and made other small edits to make the book more respectful of Chinese people and culture. With those edits, I’d heartily recommend this one. I have yet to read one I didn’t love! My favorite, though, is probably We Didn’t Mean to Go to Sea, book seven.
Fatherland – Robert Harris – 1992
This is an alternative history in which the Axis won the war. England is independent but just barely; the U.S. and Germany are about to achieve a new level of rapprochement as Kennedy prepares to visit in honor of Hitler’s 75th birthday. Hitler’s main real-life thugs are mostly still alive and still in power, and one of his inner circle has just been found dead. A detective named March with some secret doubts about the regime gets involved in the investigation, along with a female American journalist. This was very good, although hard and sad to read (which I really should have expected!) and it got harder as it went, as the plot focused in on the secret (in their world) history of the Holocaust.
People We Meet on Vacation – Emily Henry – 2021
This was a beach read from the month before, that I couldn’t bring myself to photograph in its proper April/May stack because every other book on that stack was either red or off-white. There were some funny moments in this book and it did turn the pages, but I don’t really plan to read more from this author.
Remember Me – Sophie Kinsella – 2008
I was looking again for a light, beach-read sort of book at some point this month (although I was not at the beach), and in theory I do like books about amnesia. I had already read another book about amnesia the month before, which also wasn’t quite right for me, Grown Ups by Marian Keyes. This one might have been almost the kind of thing I was looking for, but there was a Holocaust joke in it, which ruined the book.
The Heart of a Goof – P. G. Wodehouse – 1926
If the two above were a failed experiment in reading modern romance, this one and The Clicking of Cuthbertwere a wildly successful experiment in reading P. G. Wodehouse’s golf stories. I’ve never played golf (unless mini golf counts) but P. G. Wodehouse could make anything funny, and both of these books were hilarious. I was so disappointed when I went online and found out that there weren’t more golf books!
The Mating Season – P. G. Wodehouse – 1949
This is a Jeeves and Wooster, and an especially good one (except that they’re all especially good ones). Bug-eyed, orange-juice-drinking newt-fancier Gussie Fink-Nottle, a favorite character (except that they’re all favorite characters) wades in the fountain in Trafalgar Square – I’ve already forgotten why this requires Bertie to go visiting in a country house impersonating Gussie, but I remember it was hilarious and perfect. Jonathan Cecil reads the audiobook and it’s included in Audible Plus. You cannot lose!
The Clicking of Cuthbert – P. G. Wodehouse – 1922
I went back and forth between listening to Jonathan Cecil’s audiobook of this and reading my lovely Folio edition, which was a birthday gift. Loved every minute of it.
The Twyford Code – Janice Hallett – 2022
This was a very satisfying and ingenious mystery/adventure/thriller. Janice Hallett must be an absolute genius. The text comprises transcripts made by a software program and there’s something very creepy and unsettling (in a good way) about the way it lands to read someone talking along and suddenly taking a deep breath hhhhh and then sighing hhhhh. (There’s a key at the beginning to guide the reader through the software’s quirks.) Edith Twyford is a very thinly disguised version of Enid Blyton and the Twyford Code itself is a message hidden in copies of her books – but that’s just the beginning. I wish her first book, The Appeal, didn’t sound way too scary/sad for me because I’d love to read more from this author. The one that’s coming in January 2023 may be too much for me too – I may wait for reviews or for someone I know to read it.
This Time Tomorrow – Emma Straub – 2022
A 40-year-old woman wakes up 16 again and has the chance to fix things in the past, and especially to try to help her father live longer. I wrote roughly half of a novel based on the same idea a few years ago before giving up on it, so that made it really interesting to see how a real author handled it. There were a few things she did with the book that I thought were really good, specifically the very positive rendering of a father-daughter relationship, and the final plot twist. Overall, though, I can’t say I would recommend the book highly, and I’m donating my own copy (should have waited for the library!). This wasn’t the main reason it didn’t impress me overly, but it did raise my eyebrows a little when the first thing the main character did in the past was to have sex with another teenager … the author carefully explained that this other teenager was 18 (so it was “legal” however you want to look at it – got that? legal); and she also had the 40-year-old part of the protagonist’s brain sort of … recede? I don’t know. Basically, she tried to make it less weird, but it didn’t work.
Among Others – Jo Walton – 2011
I’ve read very little science fiction or fantasy but have recently enjoyed reading Jo Walton’s monthly column about her wide and varied reading each month on Tor.com. This book combined a coming of age story, a grief narrative, and elements of fantasy/fairies/the supernatural. I thought it was original and interesting and it did keep me reading, but it also had some very sad plot points and one very shocking plot point, and in that sense probably wasn’t really what I was looking for at the time. My favorite part was the intrafamilial conflict about whether the main character should have her ears pierced, and what would happen if she did.
Dolphins of Shark Bay – Pamela S. Turner – 2013
Another readaloud. I normally only put longer books than this one on these stacks, but since we read it a little at a time spread out over several months, I decided to include it. I completely love this Scientists in the Field series from Clarion Books and this one had animal behavior, boats, and Australia, so it was especially a hit.